To recap my journey so far, my first opinion was with Dr. Idiot, who only found out about my tumor when I told him I had one and then said it was no big deal.

My second opinion was with the team at Vanderbilt. They had been great, but I believed they were limited to the endonasal approach, which was expected to sever my olfactory nerve. Goodbye smell and taste.

My third opinion was from Dr. Probably, the radiation oncologist, and included many mysteries and no solid answers.

I became a woman on a web-surfing mission. My searches led me to several journal articles and papers from teams of brain surgeons in Asia, India, and the U.S. promoting craniotomies over endonasal surgery for sphenoid wing and olfactory groove tumors such as mine. They all emphasized how important retaining the sense of smell is to quality of life. Which was, of course, my opinion as well. In addition, some studies found that people with severed olfactory nerves can have a long-term problem with nasty phantom smells and tastes.

I began searching the top brain tumor and cancer centers in the U.S., places like the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Mt. Sinai, and MD Anderson, for neurosurgeons who understood this. I called the Mayo Clinic but they wanted to see me in person in Minnesota for a consultation and I wasn’t ready to go that far yet. I had no idea how I would pay for a single doctor’s visit out of state, let alone major brain surgery.

One night, I decided to feed all my requirements for the perfect neurosurgeon into ChatGPT to see what it came up with. Along with recommending specific neurosurgeons at Mt. Sinai and Columbia, it listed a Dr. Juan Carlos Fernandez-Miranda at the Stanford Skull Base Surgery Program in California as one of the top leaders in the field. In fact, ChatGPT listed him first.

I read every bit of the Stanford website and not only did Dr. Fernandez-Miranda tick all my boxes (“preserve your sense of smell and maximize your quality of life”) and specialize in the area of the brain where Fernando lives, but Stanford offered a complimentary review of medical records to see if I’d be a good fit. And unlike the other places I’d been exploring, Stanford was near where my family lived, so I’d have a place to stay during the recovery period, which could be significant. I signed up for the review and uploaded my medical records. When the form asked me to request a specific doctor, I selected Dr. Fernandez-Miranda, superstar brain surgeon and head of the entire program. Go big or go home!

Within a few days, I was corresponding with a nurse to be sure she got everything they needed. She had me create an account on the Stanford portal and send in my insurance information. Then, about a week later, I got an amazing email. Dr. Fernandez-Miranda wanted to schedule a one-hour video appointment with me. I was pretty darn sure he didn’t need a whole hour to tell me he couldn’t help me.  I was ecstatic!

The call exceeded my expectations. Dr. Fernandez-Miranda had clearly read all seven of my MRIs and was intimately familiar with my brain. He and another surgeon on his team had discussed, in advance of the call, how they would remove the tumor, and they talked me through it, explaining the full procedure in detail and the expected outcomes. When I asked who would be performing the surgery, Dr. Fernandez-Miranda said he would be doing it. When I asked about olfaction, he said, in an accent reminiscent of Antonio Banderas, “Jeannie, I can save your sense of smell.” He told me I should probably have the surgery sooner rather than later since it was better to remove it before it started causing problems – which is what I had thought all along!

I scheduled the surgery for April 2, 2025, several months out to give me time to wrap up some work projects I’d already committed to and that I needed to pay for my time off. When you’re self-employed, you don’t get sick pay, and I knew I’d have to stop working for at least a month.

But I had bigger money problems to worry about. I had no idea how much my insurance would cover and I wasn’t hopeful that I could afford the surgery at all.